Non Fiction
by rhyejess
Summary: What if Brokeback Mountain were based on a true story?
1. Chapter 1: Based on a True Story

Rob didn't say much when Gerry announced they were going to a movie. It was something he and Gerry did every couple of months, when her paycheck came in and the money wasn't needed elsewhere. He didn't much like her movie choices, but she was his little girl and he didn't give a crap what they saw anyway. Sometimes they went to Denny's first. Usually they went on a Friday night, but today they were going on Thursday because Friday, Kim would be back from college for winter break.

The theaters were a bit of a drive from Ucross, where Gerry worked the kitchen and Rob the stables of the Ucross Dude and Resort Ranch. He'd never expected to find himself working a dude ranch, but it's where Gerry found work after Rick left her, and the pay was a sight better than cattle places payed these days.

"What're we seein'?" Rob asked his oldest daughter across his Moon over My Hammy.

Gerry got that wide smile across her lined face. "You 'member Annie, right?"

Now Gerry had his full attention. _Oh shit._ "Annie Proulx? 'Course I 'member her. She and, what's his name, Woodrow was it? They still together?"

"Daddy, I don't have the faintest idea about that, but she made a movie. Or one of her stories made a movie. You 'member how she used to go around collecting stories?"

"Mmm… I 'member." He remembered really well, well enough to make him feel a bit light-headed. "We going a see her movie, then? What's that about?"

"Now, daddy, I want you to keep in mind this is a movie a Annie's, and be real polite about it, ok? 'Sides, I really want to see it."

"What's it about, now?" Rob felt his head swimming, and Denny's felt too damn hot, that was for sure.

"Well, it's about cowboys from Wyoming."

"Mmm… that don't sound too interesting."

"Well, thing is they're… they're gay."

"Gay cowboys? Never heard a such a thing. Nonsense."

"You be polite now about it, though."

Rob crammed a too-big-mouthful of eggs into his mouth, tried not to choke on it, and cursed the day he'd talked to Annie on the little porch arbor outside the dude ranch.

* * *

"_You sure you don't mind my using this in a story. This is real good stuff, Rob."_

"_Nah, shit, I don't mind. Won't no one read a sorry, sad story like that anyway."_

"_I think they would. I mean, I think it'd make a real good story." Her grey eyes had hit him hard, twinkling fiercely, challenging him to say she was wrong a second time._

"_I don't care what you do with it. Make a goddamn movie out of it if ya want. Just keep my name outta it."_

"_Alright. I'll change the names…how does 'del Mar' suite you? 'Ennis del Mar'? That enough of a change for you? It means 'of the sea' in Spanish."_

"_Do what you like. Don't matter a me none."_

_

* * *

_

Shit. Goddamn shit. And now he was going a see Annie's movie with goddamn Gerry, that's who. Fuckin' shit and a half. Maybe he could just keep quiet through it, get through this, see Kimmie, have a normal Christmas. That's what would happen. Keep quiet, don't talk, don't trust his voice. Think on Kimmie.

* * *

The movie theater was uncomfortably full, and hot. How the hell so many people from Wyoming come to see a story about a couple a queer sheep headers? How the hell Annie know the story would have this kind a draw. These people, they were queer-beaters, these same moviegoers. They had themselves tire irons in their car trunks or lean-tos, sitting in the theater with fuckin' Rob Ennis and his little girl. Rob ate his popcorn too quickly, feeling he might have need of the bucket.

Even so, as the movie started, he did alright. He had to hand it to Annie, or whoever was in charge of this. The folks up there on the screen sure did look familiar to him. Annie'd sent him a copy of the story when she'd first got it published. He'd read it, then burned it quickly as he could. She'd changed Jack's appearance in the story a little bit, gave him curlier hair, made him shorter, but the film version… Rob found himself blushing a bit before the opening scenes had advanced far. Sure did cast an awful good-lookin' guy. The bulging in is jeans only made him clutch the popcorn bucket more tightly in his worn, white-knuckled hands.

He was alright. The theater was dark, no one saw him sweat, had to clear his throat, could probably pass it off as discomfort at all the, uh, familiarity 'tween those characters up there on the screen. No one could see his pants as he remembered that night in the tent. He hadn't related it to Annie in too much detail, but living in Ucross a couple years, she'd got to know Rob, figured out that night on the mountain well enough. Enough to make him turn beet-red, but the theater was dark.

Everything was alright, he kept repeating it to himself. Alright. Then they got to the scene. He'd known it had to be coming alright. He'd read the story even, although no one knew it. But the actors up there on the screen and the roadside in Texas and them tire irons. Goddamnit. He'd held on this whole wild ride like a saddle-bronc champion, leaning far back as he could, but he didn't see this one coming even though he probably could have. Probably could have excused himself to the bathroom. Threw up hard and fast into the popcorn container instead. And then there was Gerry rubbing his back, a real concerned, hitched up look on her face. He found he couldn't look her in the eye. The movie played back in his mind, the fishing trips, the divorce, the kids-this-is-Jack, Riverton waitress, and he saw them all echoed back to him, the telling not from himself or Annie this time, but from Gerry, whole 'nother perspective on the same events. _Oh shit._

They didn't leave. He'd thought after he threw up, got a couple fierce glances from patrons, Gerry might take him out a there. He was wrong. She hung onto that chair with her own tenacity. Sometimes to Rob it seemed tenacity was the undoing of his life.

When the movie ended, they sat through the music a long time. The music was lovely and made wetness gather around the edges of Rob's vision. He thought maybe Gerry was waiting for his eyes to dry afore leaving the theater. Her lips were pursed in a tight line, and Rob knew his little girl well enough to know words were thinking of spilling out from behind them lips, but wouldn't, not yet, not until the thoughts that went with them were fully formed.

* * *

The nighttime highway flew past the truck windows. Gerry wasn't speaking, and Rob wasn't of a mind to bring up the subject, but she wasn't going to stay silent forever. Finally, only about five miles from home, Gerry's dam broke.

"So Jack, huh?"

Rob bit his lower lip. He'd hoped he might have escaped it, the subject maybe just a bit too hard for Gerry after all. "Jack." His voice cracked.

"Jack Twist?"

"Unhnn, Jack Williams."

"Mama know?"

"Yup."

"That the same Jack Judy and I met after you and mama got divorced."

Rob slid his brow further under his hat, gazed out the passenger side window into the night. "Yup."

"I don't really want to know more, daddy. I don't want to know none of it. It's alright for people in stories and movies to be gay, but…. Well, it just ain't part a God's plan."

"Yup. I understand that's how you feel, Gerry."

"You gotta tell Kim, though."

This made Rob jump up with a start. "Nuh uh, don't gotta tell Kimmie nothing, Gerry. Girl don't need to know this, no how."

"She's not a little girl, daddy, she's a grown woman."

"Don't matter."

"It's not just that. I wanted to see this 'cause it's her favorite movie now. You know that internet she's always talking about? She goes on to there and writes these stories, and talks to other fans, some of 'em in other countries, even. She's got to know."

"She seen that movie? Jesus, Gerry, what are you letting that girl watch?"

"She's twenty, daddy, she's allowed."

"Well I sure as hell ain't telling her nothing if she's seen that."

"You don't, and I will."

"Jesus."

"It would make her day, dad. Be the highlight of her year. Distract her from that crap of a present you bought her."

"I thought you said the tape was a good idea."

"I was being polite. Kids don't watch movies on tape these days."

Rob slumped against the passenger side window. For the first time in his life, he wasn't looking forward to seeing his grandbaby.


	2. Chapter 2: Blue Eyes

**AN:** Want to thank my beta, he knows who he is, on this one. His influence changed very few words, but added a large dose of much-needed realism.

* * *

Work didn't provide enough distractions. Usually he was alright. That stupid movie. Twenty three degrees, breaking ice on the horses' water buckets, and spilling some on himself on purpose to feel the sting of it, take his mind off things. Settled for a short afternoon ride on one of the three horses he kept there. 

Rob's horse was an Appendix Quarter Horse past her prime but sharp as a tack, named Heidi. She was none too friendly, but let the city folks ride her, no complaints. Gerry's horse was a younger, stouter Appaloosa named Katrina. Both Kat and Heidi paid their board by giving rides to visitors. Not Augie. He was Kim's horse, a tall, lean thoroughbred, who didn't believe in a gate slower than a canter. Rob thought he was no good, but Kim called him "spirited." _Granddad, what's the point of riding a horse if all you have to do is sit on top and let it steer, huh?_, Kim's voice echoed through his mind. Thinking on Kimmie always eased his Jack-colored pain.

But not today. "_That horse has a low startle point."_

"_Doubt there's a filly that could throw me."_

"_Granddad, what's the point of riding a horse if all you have to do is sit on top and let it steer, huh?"_

Thought and emotion began to run together. Rob felt dizzy. Kim was going a be home tonight. Kim with her blue eyes.

* * *

He was watching her sleep. She'd come home during the day, not supposed to be home until late nighttime at earliest, but evening found Kimmie passed out on her bed, blankets haphazardly wrapped around her rumpled form. Kim's mass of black curls was sticking up in all directions, and a duffle bag had been abandoned just by the door. 

He was in love with his only grand-daughter. Judy had two boys, lived far away in Chicago, but he'd been here, living with Gerry and Kimmie since Rick had run off and he'd lost his trailer all in the same year. They had a small house, three bedrooms, one bathroom, all off the same little cramped hallway, cold hardwood floors. A wide open kitchen and family room were downstairs. He was working on adding on a patio off the back door.

"She decided to come home early." Gerry met him in the hallway, home early from work herself.

"Hmm, long drive; shouldn't do it all in one day like that."

"Yeah, I know, but she likes to drive, and she likes to get back home even more. She said she couldn't take that campus one minute longer after finals. She dropped by the ranch to tell me she was here on her way in," Gerry said by way of explanation.

"What time was that, then?"

"'Bout four."

Rob groaned in disapproval. He didn't like the idea of Kimmie doing a 20 hour drive all in one night by herself, could have wrapped herself around a telephone pole or run herself off the road.

* * *

Gerry cleared the dinner plates for all three of them. It had been grilled cheese and tomato soup, but Kim had a dozy, sated expression on her face. "Thanks for dinner, mom, no one makes grilled cheese quite like you do." 

"It's not exactly a gourmet dish."

"I know, but the dining hall always burns it. And they put cream in their tomato soup."

"How did your finals go?"

"Oh God, can we not talk about that?"

"Sure thing, honey."

"What are we doing for Christmas?"

"Well, it's just going to be the three of us this year. Your grandmom's going a Aunt Judy's."

"We could have gone to Aunt Judy's!"

"Your granddad and I have to work up 'til Christmas."

"What about Uncle Cliff and Uncle Dave?" Gerry wasn't too close to her half brothers, Lynn's two kids with Lewis, but Judy was.

"Going a Judy's too. Everyone's headed out there."

"Well that doesn't seem fair."

Gerry decided it was time for a change of subject. "Your Granddad and I went to see _Brokeback Mountain_ last night."

"_Oh_, you did?" Kim's eyes lit up. She'd taken the bait. "How'd you like it?"

"It was alright."

"Aww, just alright?"

"I guess it wasn't quite my kind of movie."

"Granddad? What'd you think?"

"'S alright."

"You too?"

Rob tried not to notice the sharp glance from Gerry, rose and started wiping down the table.

"Well, _I_ really like it. What were your favorite parts? Who did you sympathize with the most? Come on, we need to discuss it! It's a discussing-type movie."

"Not in the mood," Rob grunted.

"Come on, who did you sympathize with most? Jack, right? Everyone says Jack. I guess me, too."

A noise escaped Rob's throat that might have been a laugh. "Hmm, nah, Ennis I think."

"Really? A lot of people I've talked to get kind of annoyed with him. He's a pretty complex character, under a lot of external stresses… We should go see it again!"

"Don't think I need to see it again."

"Aww, granddad, you're not being homophobic, are you?"

"Homophobic?"

"You know, not liking gay people?"

This time, Gerry laughed, and then promptly announced she needed to take a shower. She did spare Rob one more sharp glance before she disappeared up the stairs.

"No, honey, queer men are alright. Didn't always think that, but a man can change."

"That's good to hear, granddad." Her bright blue eyes twinkled.

He could see Gerry was right, he was going to have or tell her something of the truth. If she ever found out another way, she would never forgive him, and Gerry was taking no prisoners.

Kim was already glowing just from the subject of the discussion. _Guess this movie really does mean something ta her._ The glow flushed her cheeks, made her hair seem darker against her pale library-weathered skin. Where did she get that dark, dark hair, being born a two red-headed parents? She had blue eyes, alright, but they weren't the color blue of Gerry's mama's, Lynn's, eyes. They were about eight shades more vibrant. Or maybe that was the light behind them. Or the light he was wantin' a see behind them. He cursed himself there.

"Listen, darlin', I got something I need a say to you, and if I don't, your mama will." He had to talk quickly, she was reading messages on that tiny little phone a hers, and it meant he didn't have her attention for much longer. "That movie, that one from the story Annie wrote?"

She looked up. He'd found her favorite subject again.

"It weren't all fiction. Was based on a true story."

"Well I know she talks to people."

"No, I mean it. What I mean is, Kimmie, long time ago, I was a herdin' sheep on a mountain, too, with a man named Jack."

She was squinting hard at him now.

"I mean… them people in the movie? They's me and Jack. I talked to Annie 'bout it a while back. Never expected anyone would care to hear such a story, though."

He wasn't sure what he had expected to see across Kimmie's face, but he was rewarded with the biggest slightly-lopsided, toothy smile he'd seen in, oh, nearly twenty five years, wide blue eyes to go right along with them. He saw something then in that face—something he had not seen before, couldn't understand how he'd overlooked it for twenty years. Maybe he hadn't wanted to see it? Maybe it needed time to mature?

What she said next cut through him like a bread knife. "Granddad, quit fooling with me, I'm not that stupid."

Struck speechless, Rob could only watch as Kimmie said something about having to talk to her mother, and disappeared up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3: Out of the Doghouse

The smoke twisted through the chill night, until the stiff Wyoming winter wind unwound it, and Rob gripped his heavy coat more tightly about him. He watched the plume of smoke reform, and inhaled awkwardly on the last of the cigarette before snubbing it in a brown plastic ashtray. He started at the sound of the door opening.

"Daddy? What are you doing outside? It's freezin'!"

Rob shook his head minutely, barely turning to see Gerry out of the corner of his eyes. "Below freezin'." A proud smile licked at his lips, a joke being a rare enough thing from Rob Ennis.

Gerry stepped onto the patio, shutting the glass door behind her. She sat down next to Rob in a matching brown-and-orange-tubing-strung lawn chair, separated from her father by a rickety white plastic table, and that brown plastic ashtray.

"How'd your talk with Kimmie go?"

Rob's mouth turned up in a grimace as he fished another cigarette from his pocket. Gerry had asked him to quit countless times, but he just kept on ignoring her. "Didn' believe me."

"Oh?"

"Some kinda joke."

Gerry laughed, "Well, it is far-fetched."

"Gerry, would ya really a told her if I hadn't?"

"No, Daddy... that's just not the kind of thing you should keep bottled inside, and I don't know that I can handle it."

Rob nodded. "I didn't think I wanted her ta know," he paused to eye Gerry, "but now she don't believe me? I feel pretty bummed about that."

"You want me to talk to her?"

Rob shook his head. "Might try again. Haven't decided."

Gerry just nodded. Rob could see she was suppressing shivers when she spoke again, "Dad, what happened to your Jack?"

Unable to respond, Rob waved his cigarette around in the air a bit. "Well, well you seen the movie, Gerry. Jesus."

"Jus' like that, like in the movie?"

"Hell, I dunno, that's what I tol' Annie, though. Jack never could keep his damn trap shut proper." Ennis thought about Jack's mouth descending on him and thought how grateful he was for that fact, until that postcard-day. He blushed furiously at the memories he was having sitting next to his daughter.

"Sorry to hear that," she mumbled through lips full-out chattering now. "Daddy, it's too cold, I gotta go inside."

"Wait." Rob turned to her. "We're bein' all truths around here now, that right?"

Gerry nodded, shiny eyes serious by the single house light on the patio.

"Rick ain't Kimmie's dad. No one in Rick's family, ours neither, got hair like that. Dark, I mean."

Gerry frowned at him, serious still. "Daddy, you ain't one to judge fidelities—"

"Ain't judging," Rob interrupted, "jus' asking."

Gerry sighed. "Alright. 'Member when the oil company moved Rick to Texas and he and I were fightin' all the time? I got that secretary job at that farm dealership I told you about?"

Rob groaned, stamped out the second cigarette in the brown ashtray, like he was trying to stamp something out of his life.

Gerry was confused by his reaction, but she continued. "A floor manager there, name a Robert..." she trailed off, started up again, "well, he was so nice, not like Rick." She frowned.

"Robert Williams?"

"Yeah, Daddy, you know h—" She stopped mid-stride.

Rob felt all the color go from his face for a second. Apparently he wasn't the only Ennis suckered in by the Williams charm. "Bobby Williams." Rob shook his head. "Never knew 'im. But, ya know, Jack named him for me? His wife, Lori-Anne, didn't have much opinion in the matter, turns out. Jack weren't too keen on namin' another Williams after his daddy."

"Daddy, I... I don't know what you want me to say. We gotta... I gotta..."

"Kimmie know?"

"That she's not Rick's. A damn sight better than being that idiot's child, I thought. Got me outta the custody battle. It's good for her to know, too, for, you know, medical reasons and whatnot."

"You ever tell her who her real daddy was?"

"Nope, I mean, he was just some—just some floor manager—guess I should. Not just some floor manager any more, is he?"

Rob shook his head. "You do what you want, Ger, and I gotta do what I need. All these truths, worry they could break a girl."

Now Gerry shook her head, "She's strong, Daddy, knows who she is, truths ain't likely to break her. Me, maybe. You? For sure. Not Kim. She's the most grown of us all," Gerry laughed.

Rob didn't think it was too funny. He'd spent too many years already beatin' himself up for not knowing how to be a man. "Well, I ain't afraid of truths no more, Gerry, so you lay 'em on me much as you want." Truths were far more freein' that he'd known.

"Alright." She was looking at him like he'd suddenly morphed into some strange zoo-creature, or mebbe a unicorn, those big girl-eyes he was receivin'. "Alright, Daddy. Don't have any more jus' now, but I think of some, I'll tell you."

He nodded, missing the amusement dripping from Gerry's eyes and lips.

"Meanwhile, I'm gonna die of cold, and you will too, if ya don't head inside." She stood and pulled on his sleeve.

Rob hobbled up, feeling every year of sixty-one, and still a rugged old ranch-hand, arthritis in every body part, and the cold wind wrapping around him. Why the hell was he outside in this shit cold, anyway? The howling wind made him feel small and safe on the inside, even if it bruised and battered his bones on the out. No explaining that.

Finally reclining in bed, hours after he'd meant to be, and too few hours until dawn, sleep still couldn't extend a helpin' hand to Rob. Not anyone ever extending a helpin' hand, dammit. He was in a right rotten mood, too. Finally his mind settled on Kimmie, and his thoughts got all riled up again. Kimmie. Dammit, but she had Jack's eyes, and some of Jack's smile, although those thick red lips weren't from Jack or Lynn or him. Only one place left for them to come from, Lori-Anne. That was how it was, all four of them all wrapped up in that girl, like some horrible thunderstorm had crashed them all together, and as usual Jack'd come out on top. But she had Rob's carefree curls, only long like a girl's should be, and dark like any child a his and Jack's would have been.

The thought stopped him cold. He'd never imagined a child of his and Jack's. That didn't make no sense, two men, and a child. With Lynn, before he'd met Jack, he used to wonder what their kids would look like, red haired or blond, dark eyes or light. With Jack there'd been no kids. Not until now. Not until fuckin' now. Now there was.

There was no explainin' it all. Too much coincidence; couldn't all be coincidence, and that left something Rob couldn't believe. He'd been in the doghouse with his God since he was nineteen, but he couldn't think of any other way they'd all gotten mixed up in each other like this. Maybe this was some kind of punishment or taunt. Sure didn't feel like a punishment, though. Those Jack-blue girl eyes seemed more like a reward. The God he believed in didn't reward men like him. Or so he'd though, 'til now. Maybe he weren't in the doghouse after all? Maybe he'd never been? Sure had felt like it all these years, but maybe he'd served his time, and there weren't nothin' left to be ashamed of? 'Cause there weren't nothin' left at all, truth be told. Nothin' but his grandbaby. Cold mid-night hours and Rob climbed out of bed again.

He had one thing on his mind: Kimmie had to know about Jack, had to really know about him, what her granddaddy had been like, the way he used to laugh carefree like she did, the way he was picky with his water, kept his trucks clean, liked to muss up Rob's hair when he was asleep, all them things. 'Course there were some things just between Rob and Jack, but Kimmie deserved to know her other granddaddy, the better of the two. And if Gerry didn't want to tell Kimmie about Bobby Williams, Rob would just have to beg her forgiveness later. Wasn't nothin' else for it. Rob had to tell, like those preachers used to say in church, how about if something filled your soul it also came spillin' out of your mouth. Well, Rob was near to runnin' over now.

He found he'd slung on his jacket again, landed himself back on the patio, only it was even colder now and he couldn't suppress shivers. Not ten minutes of teeth railing against teeth, and the glass door slid open behind him again.

"Granddad?"

"Couldn't sleep?"

"You either? I was coming down for some milk. You okay?"

"Yeah, just needed some fresh air."

Kimmie's teeth-rattling had started by now. "It's, like, minus twelve out here." A bit of an exaggeration, but it didn't feel like one.

"Come on, baby girl, you don't need to be standin' out here. Let's go inside and get you some hot cocoa." Rob stood and pulled Kimmie inside by her bathrobe sleeve. Putting on the over-sink light, he filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove.

Kimmie hugged her robe more tightly around herself and plopped down at the kitchen table. For a minute, all was silent. When she spoke again, he voice sounded years smaller. "Wasn't a joke, was it, granddad?" Rob, pouring out hot water into two mugs of cocoa mix, barely moved his head, but anyone who knew him would have said it was an emphatic head-shake. "I'm sorry, granddad, I... I really thought it was a joke."

"Know ya' did, darlin'. Nothin' to apologize for." He didn't know how to turn around and face this girl right now, so he just stood there, head drooped over hot cocoa. He would have to face her eventually. He dragged the cocoa to the table, eyes still hanging, and placed one mug in front of her.

She cleared her throat, and continued, "I know... I know I'm alright with the story, but it was fictional then."

Rob was afraid he was about to get the 'I can't handle that you're queer' thing from Kimmie, too. The reason he'd been alright with telling her is that he didn't think he would get that from her, and she was about to give it, alright. Maybe he was still afraid of truths, after all. He dragged his eyes up to meet hers, but she was staring into her too-hot-to-drink cocoa. Finally, her voice cracked to a start.

"I... you know, I have a couple gay friends at school. One of my best friends is gay. I just... I guess I thought of it as something that belonged to my generation or something." She shrugged and met her grandfather's eyes. "I'm surprised, but it's alright. I was just wrong, I guess. I'm glad you told me, though."

Silence stretched on between them, Rob fighting back tears, and both drinking their cocoa with a headstrong determination against the heat, a determination that comes from sitting up at two in the morning in a cold house and thinking fondly on your down comforter again.

Kimmie was the next to speak again. "Did he die?"

"Yup." Some more silence weighed down between them.

"Would you be willing to tell me about your Jack? I want to hear about the good times you had and all the happy things." She smiled. "I want to feel like I remember him, but just the happy things. I mean, if you feel like it sometime."

"I'm feel like it now, darlin'. Took me forty years to be feel so, an I do. Tomorrow, mebbe."

She nodded. "Do you mind if I write it down, so I can remember?"

"Nope." Their cocoas finished, Rob had something else to tell Kimmie, but she looked too small in her pink pajamas and oversize robe. She was still such a little girl. She didn't need more than she asked for. Besides, she already wanted to know all about Jack, what reason was there to go into details right now about her parentage? He decided to leave that bit to Gerry's discretion after all. They both rose from the table and set their mugs in the sink. Rob rubbed Kimmie's back gently in the mostly-dark kitchen. "You sleep well, baby girl, and don't let any of this worry you none. We'll talk tomorrow evenin' bout it if you still want to."

Kimmie nodded and shuffled off to bed. Rob turned off the over-stove light and followed her. He found himself fast asleep just in time to wake up a couple hours later, and start his daily routine all over again.


	4. Chapter 4: The Good Times

There are not my characters, and I make no money off of this. Thanks to my beta, Max.

* * *

Saturday morning was cold and clear. Rob shoved off early and tired to the ranch, worked his hands to the bone, and went home around dinner time, just like always. He didn't think about Jack, he didn't think about Kimmie, and truth be told he didn't think about much of anything other than the herd. If the ranch were to lose its equine herd—a primary attraction for most tourists—it would lose its life. They'd bought a new horse last week and he was stalled in the cow barn for quarantine. Rob hayed and fed the dark brown gelding, stroked him a bit and chatted him up to get to know him. Then he hayed the others, and, while they ate, broke the water on all their buckets, little shards of ice and icy water refreezing onto him in the miserable cold. That tasked done, he set to scooping grain. One of their horses was on a different feed from the others because she kept losing weight, or wouldn't put it on. It smelled like sweet dark chocolate, and he thought about the upcoming Christmas and the chocolates he'd bought for Gerry. He poured some vegetable oil on that to help, and another couple horses got some oil too. A few got bute and joint supplements added to their feed. He smelled the hay for mold even knowing it was just purchased. A couple of the horses had little cuts on their legs, probably kicking their stalls or the fence or something. He checked the heat on them and applied ointment. He never left them without checking all four legs on every last one, brushed them all, picked their hooves, and sprayed the hooves of any that needed it with part-Lysol part-water. In their snow-melt-damp stalls, opening onto a series of muddy, snowy paddocks, thrush had to be kept in check. There were other hands around to care for the other animals, and some local kids to check on the horses and muck the stalls, but this was his herd and they were damn near as good as family to Rob, every last one of the twenty, as of last week, horses. 

By that time it was midmorning. Rob's other job was to do maintenance work on the ranch. In this kind of cold he wanted to check for frozen pipes. There'd been a burst pipe in one of the outbuildings, and he had to clean up the water and notify the plumber. He lunched, checked some of the fences, longed the new horse and a couple others that were begging for it, and set to their late afternoon feeding. When the sun finally set at its early winter hour, he headed on home. Today was Christmas Eve. He almost didn't hardly care.

But clearly Gerry and Kimmie did. Gerry had come home early from her work in the ranch kitchen to work in her own. The entire house smelled of ham, and she had pots on every burner. Kimmie's curly hair was tied back in triple pigtails with rubber bands, a rush job, clearly, for a girl who preferred functionality over beauty, though she always managed to make the functionality look beautiful in the process. Kimmie looked up from where a mixer was spraying cream-colored liquid all over the counter, and even mixing a little in the pie tin, to give her granddad a little wave.

Gerry pulled her head out of the oven, talking loud over the mixer, "Dad, do you think you could start a fire?"

"Sure thing, darlin'." Rob scurried outside, to the woodpile, grateful to be out of the busy kitchen.

* * *

Dinner sat thick in his stomach as he stretched out in front of the fire with a beer in his hand. Kimmie and Gerry were going to late evening Christmas Eve church, but Rob hadn't been to church since he'd been married to Lynn. They didn't even bother asking him. 

Tonight, though, only Gerry came down dressed, in a cream sweater and blown slacks. Kimmie was trailing her closely, mother and daughter, but wearing comfortable flannel striped pajamas.

"You ain't goin' a church?"

"Huh? Oh no, I don't feel like it," she shrugged.

"Gerry, you ok goin' alone?"

"Dad, I'm a grown woman. I think I can handle church."

Kimmie giggled. Rob grunted. Gerry left. And they were all alone.

Weighty silence fell like it never had between the two. Rob shifted back to face the fire, but he wasn't looking at it at all, his face contorted, mind on the girl behind him. He hated not knowing what to expect. He gripped his beer bottle tightly.

Kimmie turned on her heel and headed towards the kitchen.

Several minutes later and after the shrill cry of a tea kettle, Kimmie returned, cradling a mug. She sat in the armchair to Rob's left, directly across from the Christmas tree. She was gripping a tan notebook with some sort of flower design on it.

They sat like that for a good long while, neither speaking. Rob was expecting Kimmie to either run away or dive right in and ask about Jack, but she didn't start with either.

"Have you ever thought of moving somewhere else?"

"Huh? Where?"

"I don't know. New England, maybe."

"Uh, nope." He rubbed his hands down his dirty jeans.

"Yeah, I didn't think so." She looked wistful. Silence took over for a moment, but Kimmie braved ahead. "I, uh, I read this story. In it you moved to Connecticut. It was cute."

"Whaddya mean I moved to Connecticut?"

She shrugged. "Never mind. It was just a story."

Finally the silence grew too heavy between them, and he decided to try a topic he thought was on the edge of the white elephant, but on a part he could handle.

"I, uh, first time I met Annie?" He looked over at her under heavy brows, and her eyes met his cautiously. He looked back down to continue. "I was in this bar. Just tryin' a get out for the evenin' I guess. Watchin' some guys play pool. Saw her. She was, uh, watchin' me. From the bar? After a while she introduced herself. Guess she noticed I saw her. She came ta visit me at the ranch coupl'a times after that." He shrugged. "Was back when she was new in town." He took another sip of beer and looked up at Kimmie for her reaction.

Kimmie was staring thoughtfully into her tea, a frown across her face. That frown looked so damn familiar too, and Rob didn't like to see it there. She fingered the edge of her notebook gently.

"Darlin', weren't you wantin' ta write this down?"

"Don't really care about that part, granddad."

"Whell, what part you want, then?"

"You know which. The part where you and…" her voice failed her, and she tried again. "Where you were, I mean, you and… Jack…"

Kimmie was usually so free with words. He wasn't used to seeing her choke. Rob took a huge breath, biggest he felt he'd ever taken. He set his eyes on the fire.

"Alright then. Hope you got plenty a ink."

The ghost of a smile passed by her lips, and her eyes simply came alive as she opened her notebook.

The happy times, he reminded himself. That was all she wanted. He hoped there'd be enough to at least cramp her wrist, but he somehow doubted it. But maybe so.

"Was, uh, summer a nineteen sixty three. I was lookin' for any kind a summer job as could gain me a little cash and let me work with stock. Was hopin' that meant cattle, but what I could get was sheep…" he kept his eyes fixed on the fire, and just spilled the G-rated version to Kimmie's drinking eyes. Her pen flashed across the cream-colored pages, capturing Rob and Jack on paper for the very first time. Seemed odd, the progeny coming before the paper union, but him and Jack had always done things a little queer.

And so he told, told about Jack's boyish laugh, the damned harmonica he loved to hate, the time Jack'd flavored the steak so spicy he'd cried. He remembered with particular fondness a nighttime race—left out to Kimmie that they'd been stark naked. He told all those stories and as many more as he could think of, finding as he told that he mostly just wanted to tell more, finding as he remembered that he mostly wanted to remember more.

* * *

"Kim? Kim? Time for bed, honey." Gerry was shaking Kimmie's shoulder. The old VCR read 1:20. Rob yawned and stretched. He had to work tomorrow, too, but he would go in a bit late so they could open presents together. Still, he couldn't sleep in if he wanted to, and his bedtime had passed by long ago for the second night in a row. 

Kimmie stumbled to her feet, and being a girl with priorities, went straight to the kitchen for a homemade Christmas cookie before returning, cookie half-in-mouth, to hug her mom and granddad goodnight and wish them Marry Christmas through a full mouth. Rob snaked a weary arm around her shoulder and hugged her tightly to his own, feeling her gentle warmth. It seemed to him she'd just been born yesterday, far away in Texas, but she was already a woman full-grown. "Night, baby," he whispered to her.

She stopped to pick up her weary notebook, once pristine, but now with pages bent and writing scribbled along all the little grey lines, and stumbled up the stairs.

"How was church," Rob asked Gerry.

"Oh, nice. Mrs. O'Donnell's oldest son, you remember Kelly, right?"

"Huh, yeah, Kelly-the-boy."

Gerry rolled her eyes. "Well he's gettin' married."

"Yeah,'s that to a woman named Ted? Or mebbe not a woman." Rob frowned.

"Dad, did you just, argh, nevermind! Alright? And I have no clue what her name is."

"Frank mebbe. Or Tom."

"Dad!"

"Kelly ain't a boy's name."

"It is in Ireland."

"Ain't Ireland, it's Wyomin'."

"Just—jus' go to bed, Dad. Ok?"

"Yup." He groaned pulling himself off the sofa.

He was snatching a cookie himself and turning towards the stairs when Gerry met him mid-kitchen.

"Wait-- did you talk to Kimmie, then?"

"Yup. Wasn't too bad."

"Ok." She heaved a sigh of something that looked like relief.

"Still think you should tell her."

"About what?"

"About Jack. Bob Williams, I mean. 'Bout her father n' all."

"Dad, I told her that before you even came home today. You mean she didn't tell you?"

Rob's eyes flew open, cookie already halfway in his mouth. He bit down hard on it, and must have forgotten to chew, because it choked him a little bit.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Uh, yeah. I just didn't…" He wasn't sure what this changed, but he tried to spin back through his entire conversation with Kimmie, looking for some glaring flaw or inappropriate detail in his description, but doubting there was any. This didn't change anything.

"It's alright, Dad. Just go to bed."

Rob could barely managed a grunt as he dragged a body that felt weary with just about every arthritic ache he had up the five steps that brought him to the small attached "second floor." He stumbled into his twin bed in an otherwise empty room and let those dreams come over him as they did every night. Indeed, even though he'd told the whole story to Kimmie, Kimmie who was somehow his-and-Jack's by the humor of some maleficent God, nothing had changed.

But something had. He was still achy and weary and tired, but he felt about a hundred pounds lighter with every exhalation. Maybe there was something to this telling-people thing, after all.


	5. Epilogue: Our Histories

Not my characters, and I make no profit. Thanks to my beta, Max._

* * *

First of all, I want to thank everyone who's been reading what I write up to this point. I know this story has grown a lot in popularity, and through it I've made a lot of great friends and met a bunch of truly wonderful people. I started this story as a way to give Ennis and Jack a happy ending—and a few really hot sex scenes. The ending hasn't happened yet, I know, but I'm afraid it never will. That's why I'm writing this._

_Over Christmas break I came to learn some things about my own family that cannot help but alter my role in the Brokeback Mountain fandom. I am deeply sorry to have started a story I can't finish. In a way, though, it's not fair to give a fictional Jack and Ennis a happy ending. In real life we can't rewrite our histories. We have to live with them. Everyone who maybe felt this story understood them will only feel left behind or abandoned by that happy ending. Not that I don't want that for Jack and Ennis as well. I just can't write it any more._

_Also, my story was wonderfully smut!ful. I know a lot of people really responded well to my sex scenes, but for personal reasons, there can be no more. I'm sorry. I wish this could be different, but that's the way it's going to have to be._

_So, since I have to abandon this fic, I offer you all a consolation prize! I'm going to be starting an extended series of short stories focusing on the happy times between Jack and Ennis, in a canon setting. I hope you will all join me for that wild, and fun, ride. For any real Ennis's out there, the happy memories are all that's left of the happy ending._

_That's all. Thanks for reading thus far, and I hope you all have an excellent 2006!_

_kimmiecowgirl (Kim Jackson)_


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